An ancient eye test - Mizar and Alcor (Massimo Di Fusco)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: 79 UMa) · 79 zet UMa · 80 g UMa · Alcor · HD116656 · Mitsar · The star Alcor (80 UMa) · The star Mizar (ζ UMa

An ancient eye test - Mizar and Alcor

Mizar and Alcor are two stars that form a binary system clearly visible to the naked eye, located in the "handle" of the Big Dipper asterism in the constellation Ursa Major.
Mizar is the second star from the end of the handle of the Big Dipper, and Alcor is its fainter companion. The traditional name Mizar derives from the Arabic المئزر miʼzar which means "wrapper", "cover". Alcor, however, always derives from Arabic سها Suhā/Sohā, meaning “forgotten” or “neglected”, as a faintly perceptible companion of Mizar.
Mizar, in reality, appears to the telescope as a double star and is a four-star binary system, i.e. it is made up of two pairs of double stars gravitationally linked to each other. Instead, Alcor is a binary system. Thus, the Mizar/Alcor pair together form a sextuple system located approximately 83 light-years from the Sun.

A little curiosity: in ancient times, this double star was used as a test to understand if someone had vision problems, in case he were unable to visually separate the two stars.

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8872823
PixInsight job	B6FIPW5R9C4DP08ZWSVMVYJZA2YE010Q
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	13h24m15s.100
RA (top/left)	13h22m24s.896
RA (top/right)	13h22m24s.101
RA (bottom/right)	13h26m03s.877
RA (bottom/left)	13h26m08s.169

Dec (center)	+54°55′45″.63
Dec (top/left)	+55°14′53″.57
Dec (top/right)	+54°36′50″.34
Dec (bottom/right)	+54°36′30″.88
Dec (bottom/left)	+55°14′36″.45

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An ancient eye test - Mizar and Alcor

An ancient eye test - Mizar and Alcor

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An ancient eye test - Mizar and Alcor

An ancient eye test - Mizar and Alcor

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